Fenway Parks Loves His Red Sox

JUPITER, Fla. -- Jeff and Kay Parks
could have named their only son after a U.S. president or a great figure in
American history, but other people have done that.

They could have named him Bob, Tom,
Harold or Sam, but what's the fun in that? That would be ordinary. Mundane.

Jeff Parks is a big fan of the
Boston Red Sox -- we're talking HUGE -- so when a couple of golfing
friends suggested they name their son "Fenway," Mr. and Mrs. Parks
actually talked it over and decided, well, why not?

Say
hello to Fenway Parks, one of the best names ever given to a kid who loves
baseball, adores the Red Sox and would dearly love to play at
Fenway Park some day for his favorite team.

"Every
person asks me, 'Is that really your name? Is that a nickname, or is that fake
or something?'," Fenway said Saturday after his team played in the
WWBA World Championship. "It's my actual name, you know?"

Fenway
Parks, 15, is just a freshman in high school, but he's playing for the South
Florida Bandits on a roster filled with high school seniors. He's young, but
Fenway Parks apparently has talent.

Actually,
his given legal name is Kyle Fenway Parks, but just about the only person
who calls him Kyle is one of his baseball coaches, who happens to be a
Yankees fan and refuses to call him Fenway. Other than that, it's Fenway Parks.
Even his teachers call him Fenway.

You
might think Jeff Parks is from Boston, or at least somewhere in New England,
but you'd be wrong. He grew up in Nebraska and adopted pro teams from
Boston as his own. He could have picked a half-dozen teams in the Midwest, but
he chose Boston, mostly the Celtics were really good at the time.

The
Parks family lives in Florida now, but Jeff and Kay were living in Nebraska
when Kay was pregnant with their only child. They lived on a golf course
and let aspiring pro golfers stay in their home, and some of
those golfers suggested "Fenway" would be a good name for
the kid, knowing Jeff's passion for the Sox.

"They'd
pat Kay's belly and say, 'How is Fenway doing?," Jeff related. "They
painted his room like a baseball field, and it just kind of stuck."

Kay
is a baseball fan too, but she wasn't a diehard Red Sox fan at the
time. She had to think it over. Did she really want her son to be
named after a baseball park?

"We
had long discussions about it, and it stuck," she said. "Luckily
he likes baseball."

"Yeah,
he loves baseball," Jeff confirmed. "That's all he does."

Jeff
and Kay considered other names, by the way.

"We
kind of went through all of the parks," she said. "You know,
Candlestick Park. All the different parks, depending on whether it was going to
be a boy or a girl."

As
it turns out, a lot of Fenway's friends are Yankee fans. Some of them call him
Wrigley, but that's OK. They're just kidding.

The
entire Parks family visited Fenway Park in 2007, which was a dream come true
for Fenway. It's been his only trip to the park so far.

"It
was awesome," he said. "It's so old, and has so much history and so
much excitement there, it's just amazing. I love it."

They
sat three rows behind Pesky Pole in the right-field corner at Fenway Park, and
Fenway went up to a few security guards and introduced himself. "They
wouldn't believe his name was Fenway," Jeff said, laughing at the memory.

The
Red Sox won the World Series the year Fenway Parks visited Fenway Park in 2007,
so they might want to consider inviting him back. Maybe he could throw out the
first pitch.

As
you might imagine, Fenway Parks has been given all sorts of Boston Red Sox
memorabilia as gifts over the years, including a bunch of pictures of Fenway
Park.

"Probably
like 20 or so," he said. "It's all on our TV room, it's all on our
living room, the kitchen, my room, my parents' room. It's everywhere."

Think
ahead now. Fenway Parks is now a high school senior, a star player and in
demand by major league teams. Commissioner Bud Selig strides to the podium and
announces, "With the first pick in the 2014 draft, the Boston Red Sox
select ... Fenway Parks!"